Supporters cheer at the end of President Barack Obama remarks during an election night party, early Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

(Newser)
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Conservatives wanted to believe that Barack Obama's 2008 victory was a one-time affair, a unique confluence of events. Now they know better. It's a genuine realignment, writes Ross Douthat in the New York Times. Obama won with the same coalition he marshaled in 2008. "It was the late George McGovern's losing coalition from 1972 finally come of age: Young voters, the unmarried, African Americans, Hispanics, the liberal professional class—and then more than enough of the party's old blue collar base to hold the Rust Belt."

"The Obama coalition was vulnerable," Douthat insists, but "only to a Republican party that took Obama seriously as an opponent." Instead they clung to the belief that the rhetoric of the '80s could win in 2012. Romney lost because he lacked the imagination to reinvent his party, and because "his party didn't particularly want to be reinvented." The right may yet manage that, but they'll have to face facts: "The age of Reagan is officially over, and the Obama majority is the only majority we have." Click for Douthat's full column.

"It's a genuine realignment..." lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's a coalition of different sub-groups getting free stuff. That's the coalition. The more stuff that's passed out, handed out, given out, from free health care to free contraceptives to food-stamps to free housing, free cash for a clunker, free keychains, free phones, free internet minutes, knick-knacks, and coin purses, the more voters who will be created, the more unbeatable the Democrats will become, until finally they're not beatable at all. Only possible downside: it only works until the Monopoly money paying for it all runs out. Oh, and it destroys everything this country has ever been about.

Sterling_Archer

Nov 7, 2012 5:26 PM CST

Douthat is probably spot on. this country seems to go in generational cycles. The country goes from liberal, to conservative, to liberal again. FDR started 50 years of liberal leaning politicians. Reagan ushered in 30 years of conservatism. Obama may be ushering in 30 years of liberalism. History repeating.